My dad and were discussing a cruise we went on in December 1996 or December 1997 (we can't remember which but I believe it was Dec 96 into Jan 97). It was a New Year's cruise on the Costa Romantica. We had never sailed on Costa before that time and vowed never to sail on Costa ever again (which we have not). The food, the service, the activities--everything was wrong.

The reason I am writing is we were talking about our experience on Costa as a result of the terrible tragedy with the Concordia. In our discussion we remembered that the ship stalled while we were on a day at sea. I did some Googling and found that the Romantica also had an engine room fire and stalled for 24 hours in 2009. We couldn't believe it.

Anyway, we were curious if there were any articles or info about the 1997 stall? Or even better, anyone on that sailing too??? We're just so curious if there was more to it than they told us. They gave us all free drinks that afternoon to keep our minds off of it - hah! My mother was a nervous wreck as were many others. One minute you'd see nothing but sea, and the next second you'd see nothing but skies. The ship was just drifing and rolling with the waves - the stabilizers were clearly off. While we weren't in any danger it is just one more strike against Costa. We have been on dozens and dozens of cruises and nothing like this has ever happened before or since. We will never sail on Costa again, even before the Concordia accident.